Ziki Questi's Blog

07 December 2016

Now open at the elegant DiXmiX Gallery, curated by Dixmix Source, is Cerebral Frame, an exhibition of photographs by Isa Messioptra. The thirteen beautifully-wrought images on display vary from monochrome to full color, and represent work that extends back over the last year and a half.

"She's a story telling photographer," said Dixmix as we talked about Isa's images. "I can enter in her pictures and tell myself a story — I love that kind of photography." As for the title of the exhibition, "It's the title of one of my pics that isn't up here," laughed Isa, "but it is unlike many of my older pics that were straight linear stories ... while the last couple of years they are more feeling and ambiguous ... like a spark ... and hopefully you feel something from them and it takes you someplace." All of Isa's works are available for purchase, and contributions toward support of the gallery are also welcome.

06 December 2016

Over the summer, artist Giovanna Cerise opened her own gallery space, The last harbor, on the sim Southern Marvel (read here). Now, in a significant expansion, she has opened the Sky Gallery, situated far overhead, which serves as a space for both two- and three-dimensional works, including some featured in her recent LEA build, Monochrome (read here). While all the artworks can all be purchased, visitors who prefer to simply enjoy them in exhibition space are welcome, and contributions toward the gallery's support are accepted. A teleport is available to transport visitors down to the Art Open Space ground level.

04 December 2016

Fall may be rapidly vanishing in the Northern Hemisphere, but it's alive and abundantly well at Fall Trace, a new twist on the tradition of changing seasons at The Trace (read here), originally developed by Kylie Jaxxon in 2013. Beginning in 2014, Kylie was joined by designer Elvira Kytori, and the two have collaborated over the past couple years, changing the seasons at The Trace every several months. Now, rather than delete the old season, the pair have opted to add two additional sims, so that the Summer Trace remains, and Fall Trace and Winter Trace are new additions, with each setting remaining on display for a year before revision.

Elvira was the lead landscaper and decorator on Fall Trace, with Kylie and Gnaaah Xeltentat credited as co-decorators. The sim is a stunningly beautiful setting in which fall colors — rich golden browns and reds — are brought to life under a dreamy sky. Visitors can make their way around the sim by a system of wooden walkways that cut through the tall grasses — foliage tall and thick enough that it's hard to see through it, until suddenly a majestic view opens up, perhaps with a brilliant view of the horizon. The walkways weave about and connect various small buildings and homes, many of which contain charming interiors and places to relax.

Be sure to have local sounds turned up, as the abundant wildlife on the sim — especially birds — creates a rich sonic environment, and be sure also to accept the sim's default windlight settings, as shown here. This is a sim that's sure to become a classic for photographers, explorers, couples looking for a spot to cuddle, and wanderers looking for some solitude. If you enjoy your visit to Fall Trace, please consider leaving a contribution.

02 December 2016

Now open for exploration is La Digue du Braek, a new creation from Serene Footman and Jade Koltai. Visitors might be struck by the similarity to the expansive feel of Serene's well known sim Furillen (read here), with its contrast of open space and industrial areas, and, like Furillen, La Digue du Braek is modeled on a real life area. It's "inspired by La Digue du Braek, a 7km long road near to Dunkerque, flanked by a beach on one side, and heavy industry on the other — a perfect tension between nature and machine," say Serene and Jade.

The landing point is situated on the north side of the sim, where a long strip of beach provides a few places to relax and take in the view, but it's not an entirely idyllic one — we spy wind turbines off to the west, ruins toward the east, and a fairly gloomy brownish-grey sky that covers everything in a blanket of haze. A road runs along the interior edge of this sandy strip of land, and leads to the southern half of the island.

And it's here on the southern section that we spy industry everywhere: cranes dot the skyline, and refinery tanks and cargo containers fill the cement-covered ground. A large warehouse is delightfully decorated on the inside and includes an impressive assortment of adult furniture. If you enjoy your visit to the beautifully evocative and slightly surreal La Digue du Braek, please consider leaving a contribution toward its continued support.

01 December 2016

Lemonodo Oh has invited artists Douglas Story and Desdemona Enfield to show a vintage artwork, StormEye, on the ground below his artist residency installment at LEA24. Absent from the grid for many years, this classic immersive environment is a delight to see once again, and has been rezzed essentially just as it was when last on display in another location. (Certain scripted things may not work well or not at all — for example the Bryn Oh umbrella dispenser at the entrance and the various cushions within the build.)

It's essential that visitors turn on the streaming media (instructions are posted at the landing point) that brings the artwork to life: upon entering the gently undulating StormEye tube, depending on your timing, it might be a tranquil display of gently moving clouds floating through a deep blue sky, or gathering storm clouds, or violent lightning and lashing rain, or gradual clearing, all as shown here in a sequence of static images. (My partner, Kinn, was never able to get this to work, so it might be a challenge for some visitors, and in real time the images are in constant motion.)

"Douglas said yesterday StormEye is the favorite of his children," remarked Lemonodo. "He and Desdemona have done amazing work creating responsive scripted environments over many years, which is why I invited them as guest artists to share the LEA24 region in the short time left in my LEA air grant residency — I invited them only a few weeks ago, which precluded them from presenting new work if they didn't already have something in the making." After you've weathered the storm, click on the small tornado within StormEye to teleport back down to the ground — and you'll land on a simple if delightful surprise. (Click on the nearby spike to teleport back up.) StormEye will remain on display through the end of December.

Notecards provide biographical information on each of the featured artists. It's up to each artist to decide when to rotate new works into their displays, so check back frequently to see what's fresh — there's enough to see that visitors might want to plan more than one trip to fully enjoy the entire exhibition.

29 November 2016

Break out your umbrellas, raincoats and boots, and prepare for a journey to One Caress, a new — and exceptionally wet — creation by Squonk Levenque and Miuccia Klaar, famed for their earlier waterlogged regions that included H22O (read here), 2304 Rain (read here), and Treptower Park (read here) — plus Felona e Sorona (read here). In One Caress, amid the drenching precipitation, some visitors might recognize references to those earlier builds — a black-horned sheep by the name of Hermenegildo, scattered amusement park items, street lamps, and a dense forest of bare-branched trees — but there's much new to discover.

Visitors arrive at a landing point overhead — a bit of a drizzly prelude — and teleport down to the surface into a watery forest situated in the center of the sim, around which are wrapped various scenes. The only place that escapes the steady onslaught of rain is on the southwest corner, where a tall, narrow island juts up abruptly from the sea. Its walls are too steep to climb, but a long winding staircase leads through and above the rain clouds up to the top, where a tiny house awaits (image above). (It's 10 Barnes Street, the address of the last home of author H.P. Lovecraft, and the interior is decorated accordingly.) And it's hard to miss the bears that populate the sim, especially the giant one to the east, which comes complete with a dangerous pose (lowest image featuring my partner, Kinn).

Diligent explorers might find a hidden thing or two hidden under the floorboards, so to speak, so be sure to cam about and investigate. Balloon rides through the sim are available, and are a fun way to drift about to take in the sights. The images here were taken using the sim's default environmental settings, which are strongly recommended. And the sim's name? "Even before we got the sim," Miuccia shared, "Squonk said, 'I know the name for the next sim: One Caress.' He was watching the video from Depeche Mode and something in it — the arch and the violins — hit his brain." If you enjoy your visit to One Caress, please consider leaving a contribution toward its continued support.

25 November 2016

The DiXmiX Gallery, curated by Dixmix Source, is currently showing several concurrent exhibitions in its various galleries. The work of Fingers Scintilla (image above) recently opened at the White Gallery, where his portraits, often infused with bright colors, feature faces that stare out to us, sometimes impassively and sometimes fraught with emotion. In the Black Gallery, monochrome works by Gaus (Cicciuzzo Gausman) (image below) explore the female form, and these will remain on display until about December 8.

The double-height lobby area of the entire gallery currently shows works by Maloe Vansant (image below) that will remain on display through the season, while photos by the curator are on display in the Grey Gallery. As always, works by a few other artists are scattered about, and most of the items are available for purchase. If you enjoy your visit, please consider leaving a contribution in support of DiXmiX.

23 November 2016

Now open at MetaLES, curated by Romy Nayar and Ux Hax, is Tout est Allumé, a major retrospective of the work of Tutsy Navarathna, one of the premiere time-based media artists working in Second Life. Represented in this substantial exhibition are 16 machinima and 19 "animated pictures" displayed in a remarkable space that is in every way as much of an artistic experience and a delight to the eyes as the works themselves.

"Virtual reality, augmented reality, virtual life, immersive worlds ... These new words describe a part of our future," says Tutsy. "My movies in Second Life try to show how virtuality is part of our reality. The influence it has on our thoughts, our artistic creations, our friendly or romantic relationships. A phenomenon still very young, virtual life has a bright future and like all major revolutions it is worth to see more closely, trying to understand, even flying too close to the sun and burn your wings..."

To navigate through the massive multi-level installation space, simply follow the illuminated lines on the floor; instructions on how to view the artworks are provided at the entrance. The exhibition notecard also provides URLs for the various artworks on Vimeo and Rezatar (and Tutsy has a YouTube channel as well). Tout est Allumé will continue on display through January 1, and visitors should be prepared to make repeated visits to entirely enjoy all it has to offer.

22 November 2016

Now open at Split Screen Installation Space, curated by Dividni Shostakovich, is from here on there be dragons, a striking new work from Alpha Auer. Set amid a minimalist city hovering the air — reminiscent of the artist's fabulous Blueprint City (read here) — are bold and highly detailed dragons, their formidable golden forms reflected in the floor that supports them. In keeping with the contrasting modern/ancient pairing of materials and the simple/ornate use of textures in the overall build, the floor texture alternates between a thick transparent glass and a leaf from a 1570 atlas by the Renaissance map maker Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which hearkens back to an earlier age when dragons possibly still existed (at least in the imaginative minds of the day).

"They are about unknown things," says Alpha as she comments on the dragons, "possibly grave dangers, but possibly also magnificent wonders which we cannot untangle unless we tackle the dragons that guard them first. These dangerous wonders reside within our inner selves as much as they reside in external circumstances. Of these it is the inner territory that interests me more — hence the abstraction of the architecture that my, seemingly real, dragons guard. Because what is unknown in the inner self is abstract, but our fear of it is very concrete."

Remarkably, in this modern Second Life world in which most new notable creations are mesh, the dragons in the build are crafted, and beautifully so, out of old-fashioned sculpted prims. Alpha may be best known to some readers as a creator of avatars through her shop alpha.tribe (read here), and for this build she provides a free unisex avatar that's available at the entrance to the installation. from here on there be dragons will remain on display through January 31.